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UN Lebanon Envoy Due in Tehran

The UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag is to visit Tehran today. She will hold meetings with Foreign Ministry officials on Monday to discuss the priorities and challenges facing Lebanon, particularly a longstanding presidential crisis. Kaag will likely meet Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari and Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi, ISNA reported. The UN official will later visit Saudi Arabia and Russia to seek help for Lebanon. Lebanon has been without a president since the end of the six-year term of former president, Michel Sleiman, in May 2014. Disagreements between lawmakers in the Lebanese Parliament have resulted in their failure to pick a new president. The power vacuum, which has paralyzed the Cabinet and parliament, is considered the longest since 1990, which marked the end of Lebanon's civil war. Under Lebanon's power-sharing system, the president must be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shia Muslim.